Thursday, 24 December 2015

Secured Energy Bond investors continue to battle to bring wrongdoers to account and get their money back

It is now
almost a year since Secured Energy Bonds (SEB) defaulted on interest payments
to bond holders and went into administration.

Some might
wonder how far things have advanced in that time. There has been much effort
from investors to get their money back with the formation of the Investors
Action Group (IAG).

More than
100 MPs have been contacted, with government ministers, the Financial Conduct
Authority (FCA) and the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) all amongst those
informed about the situation.

At present
a number of investors await a decision from the FOS as to whether they can proceed
to consider the case against Independent Portfolio Managers (IPM). The initial
indications were that the FOS believe the case does come within their
jurisdiction. However, IPM have challenged this. A new FOS adjudicator is now
considering matters, prior to hopefully moving forward.

There is growing frustration amongst investors. The feeling that the
authorities, regulatory and otherwise, are kicking the issue around amongst
themselves to little effect. The hope is that there is an effort being made to
find a just resolution for investors but the ongoing delays do not foster
confidence. A little more from administrators Grant Thornton wouldn't go amiss either.

There has
been some media coverage of the SEB case, with notable articles in the
Guardian, FT and Independent but others have remained silent.

It has
been surprising that newspapers like the Telegraph, Times, Sunday Times and
Daily Mail seem so disinterested in the story. Possibly even more surprising is
the lack of interest shown by the BBC Radio 4 programme Moneybox, which despite
several approaches has done nothing to date.

The
struggle for investors is trying to get over the nature of the offence they
have been forced to endure. Even those that have covered the story do not seem
to have written the headline big enough, namely that the Australian company CBD
Energy took out £5 million plus of the money invested to buy solar panels for
schools and used it for other purposes. This is the nub of the offence that
most of the money invested in good faith was not used for the purpose that
those investing the money intended and were led to believe it would be.

Even those
writing about the case have contextualised the story in terms of it being a
risky venture that could sink at any time. The reality is that it was not a
risky venture, had CBD Energy not swiped most the money for something else
altogether. It has been an outrageous injustice, that really should be getting
a wider audience.

The IAG is
fighting not only to get the money back of investors in SEB but also to ensure
that the law and regulatory framework is changed so that such an injustice
cannot be perpetrated on another bunch of innocent people in the future.

At present
the wheels of justice seem to be moving extremely slowly but make no mistake
the IAG are going nowhere and will continue battling until this wrong is
righted and cannot be repeated.